As a sales manager, my number one priority is making sure each and every person is continuously improving across the board so that we can blow our goals out of the water. On my plate, I manage our systems, processes, tools, and people. It's a lot. And with a growing team and growing set of responsibilities, it becomes more difficult to delve in and uncover real world coachable moments in the field. Then one day, I realized we have an ion feature that we created in our platform to help sales people, but it's incredibly helpful for me to uncover coachable moments as well.

There are many techniques to help engage people with your content—relevancy, personalization, quality, and on and on. But it’s possible that none are as important as the visual aspects of your content. Imagery and visual design help people forge emotional connections to a story, and they happen instantaneously. This isn’t just a case of people wanting to look at “pretty pictures”. There are metrics (yes, metrics!) to back up the notion that visual content needs to make its way into your content.

Content measurement. It’s a challenge. You probably already know that though, because at least half of all marketers say they struggle with content measurement. A few weeks ago, we provided 5 tips to help point you in the right direction, but let’s face it, it’s way more complicated than any single blog post. Where you fall on the continuum of content measurement could be anywhere from rookie to rock star.

We’ve compiled a killer list of what some of the best in the biz say about content marketing ROI and encourage you to read it, ponder it, pick parts or all of it to put into practice. Make it your OWN… just like the awesome content marketing you create. Don’t fret over what to measure and how to calculate content marketing ROI! Sit back and soak in the wisdom and perspective from those in the trenches.

Anna Talerico chats with ion co-founder and Chief MarTec Scott Brinker about the state of content marketing today. Check out the video or read the transcript and get an insight into interactive content marketing straight from Chief MarTec himself.

As Beverley Reinemann said over on the distilled blog, “This visually-lead social channel might have its roots in B2C marketing but, with over 300 million subscribers, can your B2B brand afford not to be on Instagram?” There’s no denying it. Instagram is a GREAT conduit for content and it’s all kinds of awesome. We rounded up our marketing technology companies that are currently rocking Instagram and curated a nifty little list (we kind of like to do that if you haven’t noticed). Check out these 10 Instagram rockstars.

Marketers, imagine you were given the opportunity to appear on Shark Tank and present your business case for Shark investment in your upcoming budget for content marketing. Would it go like this? Cue the music. Doors open... in walks a Director of Digital Marketing & a Marketing Manager.

Historically, marketing has had a wide range of dependencies in order to execute their strategies and ideas. Agencies to negotiate and place media. IT to manage their customer database. Developers to code and launch the digital media. But marketing technology brings a whole level of capability to marketers and their organization. Today, marketers have an array of choices in front of them that give them the freedom to be in the executional driver’s seat.

We all hit the creativity wall once in a while, especially at the rate that we’re producing new content (according to CMI, 70% of us are creating more content than we were a year ago… hello, creative burn out!) There’s a wealth of great advice from really smart people to help inject a bit more creativity into your content and blast through a creative slump. We rounded up some of our favorites. Hopefully, you find some inspiration here.

I was researching your product and company this morning... so I went to your website. How did I get there? I don't remember. It may have been an ad on a Google search, a LinkedIn post or some other ad I clicked through... who knows? I wanted to learn more about your company and your products and it is too early to call you up so after looking over your home page, I clicked on your resources tab. Ok, some whitepapers, datasheets, a couple of videos. Not a library of information but it might answer some of my initial questions. I saw a whitepaper icon with a headline and a description that looked promising. I clicked on the icon...

The music lovers of the world aren’t cut from the same cloth. They all have different needs, different wants, different tastes. Music festivals have to appeal to many MANY different audiences. And they do just that… Just like your content marketing should. While content marketing season is year round for us, our audience has all different needs, different wants, and different tastes. So take a note from Festival Season and let’s look at six of the biggest types of interactive content to appeal your desired audience.

As content marketing takes a main seat at the marketing table, it raises a new set of questions regarding its measurement. People want to know what metrics to use, best practices, how much time and effort to dedicate? Before you even dig into how to tackle content measurement, take a breath, breathe into a paper bag, do some yoga…whatever gets you to your happy place. And then consider these 5 takeaways from marketing experts.

Perhaps the better question is ‘where can’t you use it?’ Interactive content experiences are a great way to engage your audience across a wide variety of mediums, channels and contextual situations. But sometimes the question is what content experiences should be used in your various channels. What works best where?